state politician's bill to bar
foreign laws, including Islamic law, from South Carolina's courts is an
unnecessary move that fuels anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, rights
groups say.

Introduced by State Representative
Harry "Chip" Limehouse, a member of the right-wing Republican party,
the bill proposes to bar Islamic jurisprudence and other forms of international
defences in state courts.

Limehouse's bill was passed by a
vote of 68-42 in the House branch of South Carolina's legislature. In order to
become law, it still needs to be passed by the state Senate.

Rising Islamophobia
concerns US Muslims

The bill comes at a time when
several other states are considering similar bills and just months after at least 31 states vowed to
block Syrian refugees from resettling within their respective borders.

Robert McCaw, a spokesperson for the
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), explained that South Carolina's
bill is part of "a state and federal trend for support for legislation
which seeks to make the religious principles of Islam illegal".

There were at least six anti-foreign
law bills introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2015, while a
similar bill barring Islamic law from federal courts was reintroduced in
Congress last July.

"These bills overall are
designed to stigmatise Muslim communities by seeking to ban state courts from
using foreign laws, including Sharia (Islamic) law," McCaw told Al
Jazeera.

"The supporters of these laws
fail to mention that American courts are already constitutionally obliged to
follow American law." Speaking to Al Jazeera by telephone,
state legislator Limehouse defended the bill. "We welcome everyone to the
US: Christian, Muslim, Jew," he said. "But they are going to operate
and live under our laws when they get here - and hopefully prosper."

Limehouse argued that people who
immigrate to the US, including Muslims, should "take up the American
culture. This includes the law of the land... by which we run our courts and
businesses and everything else".

He added: "Sharia is not an
accepted form of justice in the United States."

With anti-Muslim sentiment already
high, CAIR's McCaw explained that elected officials and candidates have created
an "environment of fear" in order to push for discriminatory
programmes and bills.

"It's obvious that this is an
incredibly toxic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim environment, and that is has
impacted our state and federal legislatures," McCaw said.

"We have politicians playing
off public fears of terrorism to get votes. I want real legislation that keeps
us safe and not phony legislation that gives us a false sense of
security."

US leaders, among them influential
presidential candidates, have been accused of stoking
anti-Muslim and anti-refugee panics.

Trump controversy: Call
for US 'Muslim ban' condemned

In December, Republican frontrunner
Donald Trump called for Muslims to be banned from travelling to the US after 14 people were killed in San Bernardino,
California, during an attack carried out by Muslim suspects.

Less than a month earlier, the presidential candidate said mosques
should be put under surveillance and that he supported implementing a database
to track American Muslims.

Those comments came in the wake of
the deadly Paris attacks - carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant - that killed 131 people, after which several mosques and Islamic
religious centres were vandalised in the
US.

Wade McMullen, an international
human rights lawyer at the Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human
Rights, said that legislation banning foreign laws could cause legal
complications for people who are party to business, marriage or adoption
contracts drawn up in courts abroad, for instance.

"Any piece of legislation that
targets Muslims is anti-democratic, unconstitutional and goes against US
values," McMullen told Al Jazeera.

"Political scapegoating of
minority groups is nothing new in this country," he said.
"Unfortunately, American Muslims are among the prime targets of this
political posturing today."

Source: Al Jazeera

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